Oliver Tambo: Fascism in South Africa
(Extracts of a Statement by the President of the African National Congress of South Africa, O. R. Tambo, on the Occasion of the Launching of the International Year Against Apartheid, United Nations, New York, 21 March 1978)
“Arising directly out of the experience of the rise and defeat of fascism, the founders of this Organisation realised, and sought to give concrete expression to the fact, that the sphere of international relations has ceased to be a tangential factor in the formulation and execution of national policies. Rather, the international setting, itself brought into being by the interaction of national policies, correspondingly provides the condition and the framework for the pursuit of national objectives.”
“To put the matter briefly, the accession of the apartheid regime to power 30 years ago coincided with the efforts of the fascist forces, defeated in Europe, to regroup themselves wherever this was possible, in preparation for their reemergence on the world scene, once more organised, once more strong enough to seek to impose their will on the peoples of the world. In South Africa these forces found fertile ground, enriched by a long history of colonial and white minority domination, and made specially favourable by the fact that the present rulers of our country had for many years prior to their 1948 victory organised themselves into the Nazi vanguard of South Africa, adopted and schooled themselves to the
